


We Don't Know When to Quit

by natacup82



Category: Ghostbusters (2016)
Genre: Day Off, Gen, Slice of Life, gen - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-16
Updated: 2016-12-16
Packaged: 2018-09-08 21:12:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8862202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/natacup82/pseuds/natacup82
Summary: The ladies get a rare day off, but it doesn't go as planned.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wonderluck](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wonderluck/gifts).



> Thanks to A for the beta and the title advice and E for taking a look as well.

**_Patty_ **

The day off is Erin’s idea, but Patty jumps on it immediately. “Yeah, that’s a great idea. We all need some relaxation time,” she says, already halfway across the main floor toward the door. 

She waves as she bolts out the door, not pausing long enough to let this rare day off get canceled. 

Patty loves being a Ghostbuster. She loves having a job that people appreciate and that makes people’s lives better. She loves having friends again, real friends that have her back when things get beyond the level of weird she’s willing to put up with. It’s been so long since she had friends. All of her childhood friends have gotten so caught up in their families that Patty can’t even remember the last time she saw them outside of a old neighborhood block party. 

It’s great to have friends again, but sometimes Patty just wants a day to herself. To hop on a train, go shopping, and dig into some history. She takes the train, needing to make more connections than she’d like and somehow not seeing anyone she knows working, to the Bronx Library Center and gets to work.

Patty’s been working her way through the historic sites of the city borough by borough for years, learning their stories and cross-referencing with historic trends in other cities built around the same time. Now she’s refocusing on the Bronx, trying to get a handle on some of the lesser-known buildings just in case anything bizarre catches her eye. 

She’s halfway through a history of the Bronx from 1865-1965 when she spots something interesting. There are several paragraphs about an international garden club that operated out of several old buildings in the Bronx. Patty can’t find any obvious detail about why they seemed to relocate every year between 1840 and 1914, when they moved into the Bartow-Pell Mansion, but it’s something.

Patty isn’t sure why it’s sticking out to her, but she’s never been one to not follow a hunch, so she goes looking for more information. 

“Nothing, nothing, kind of boring,” Patty mumbles, scanning frame after frame of old society pages. She stops at 1914 when there’s a reference to the city leasing the Bartow-Pell Mansion with a picture of the international garden club. 

There’s nothing particularly interesting about the picture, it’s just a dozen old-timey-dressed white women standing in front of the mansion. But there’s one older woman who sticks out, something about her face that’s on the wrong side of creepy. “All that money and still this woman is glaring like she’s bothered to have her picture taken.”

Patty keeps looking, keeps digging, and finds another group picture dated 1924. The same woman is standing in the back of that group picture, a little bit older, looking a little bit meaner. Patty goes forward another ten years, same woman, same worn angry face. 

It’s when she sees that same face repeated over and over into the the 50’s and 60’s and 70’s, that she notices the aging has stopped. Each image the woman is there scowling, looking not a day over 60 and, as Patty looks closer, wearing the same clothes from the last picture. 

“Well shit,” Patty says, sitting back in her chair. She’s weighing what to do on what is most likely some sort of ghost situation when someone taps her on the shoulder. 

“Excuse me, are you one of those Ghostbusters?” the girl asks, wringing her hands and looking around like she doesn’t want anybody to see her there. 

Patty smiles, one of her best _trying to make these passengers hate their commute a little less_ smiles, and says, “I sure am, did you need something?”

The girl nods, not returning the smile. “I volunteer over at the old Bartow-Pell Mansion, and I’ve been seeing some weird things lately.”

“Creepy lady in old-timey clothes scowling at everybody weird?” Patty asks, taking a guess based on what she’s seen. 

“Yes,” the girl says, eyes going wide. “Can you help me? Please?”

“I guess this day off is over,” Patty says, reaching for her phone. 

*

**_Abby_ **

It’s not that Abby minds that everyone took off as soon as the words “day off” were mentioned, it’s just that she wishes they planned these things better. They don’t have any pressing cases, but she’s been counting on case work to help her procrastinate on writing for the next book. 

Abby heads up to her office in the fire house and sits down at the computer to try to make the magic happen. The second book had come together so quickly that this sudden bout of writer’s block has really taken her by surprise. Erin keeps leaving notes saying _need your next chapter so I can add on_ with smiley faces whenever Abby puts it off; it’s annoying. 

She pages through her notes, cracks her knuckles, and says, “Okay, empty building, no calls, perfect time to knock this thing out.” And then Abby proceeds to open YouTube and spend two hours watching unexplained mysteries videos. 

Abby notices the time when the front door buzzes, and she realizes with a start that she'd ordered Chinese to be delivered two hours later. “Damn it.”

She heads down, pays, and pulls out the container, and says, “Six entire wontons, glad to see we’re making progress.”

“You complained the last time we gave you more,” Bennie says, shrugging. 

Abby sighs, “I just want a reasonable ratio of broth to wontons. Not one, not 40, just a reasonable number, like 10-15. Work with me here.”

Bennie shrugs, heads for the door, and says, “I can’t predict how many they’ll put in there. It’s the luck of the draw.” And then he’s gone, and Abby is left with an almost okay number of wontons and no progress after two hours of “work”.

She heads back toward her office, dragging her feet at the thought of trying again to make this chapter come together, when her cell phone vibrates in her pocket. “Oh thank God,” Abby mumbles, happy for the distraction.

“This is Abby,” she says, answering the phone and skipping “hello”. 

“Abby, it’s Patty. Um... can you get to the Bronx? I need a second pair of eyes on something.”

Abby shifts the phone from her hand to her shoulder to get a better grip on her bag and says, “What kind of something? Holtzmann has the car but I can probably cab it.”

“I just found this weird garden club that operated out of this historic mansion in the Bronx. And I would think it’s just regular NY weird but a girl just found me in the library to ask if I could take a look at the grounds of the mansion where she works,” Patty says, pausing. Abby can hear pages flipping over the phone. 

“Same mansion?” 

“Same mansion. And I’ve just found a collection of pictures of members of the club through the years. Same creepy woman in every picture for something close to 50 years.”

Abby frowns, “That’s not that weird. If she was really into gardening.”

“Most people into gardening age,” Patty says. “It’s the same face from 1914 through 1965.”

Abby pauses and says, “So I guess I’m going to go ahead and grab our proton packs before I go, and I’ll track down Erin and Jillian.”

Abby looks down at her soup sadly and says, “Guess I can save you for later,” and then looks toward her office and mumbles, “and you too, so sad,” not sounding sad at all. 

*

**_Jillian_**

Normally Jillian doesn’t take days off seriously. 

They just mean a day to dig into some of her more volatile projects without the risk of vaporizing anyone. But supplies are running low, and they have the money now that she doesn’t need to poach parts from a TV to build a proton sword.

Jillian pauses in the aisle of Home Depot and mumbles, “Note to self, build a proton sword,” before she keeps walking. 

Her cart is full of all sorts of fun stuff as she heads into the aisle full of PVC piping. She doesn’t technically need anything from the aisle, but it’s always fun to take a look and see what new things come to mind. 

Jillian walks down the aisle and stops in front of a pile of curved piping, the kind most people have under their sinks, and starts comparing. She’s not there long before some guy walks up to her.

“Hey sweetheart, you looking for a contractor?” he asks, pointing at the pile of stuff in Jillian’s cart. “Because it looks like you’re a little confused.”

Jillian doesn’t bother to look up, letting her mind run through a potential experiment with energy redirection and the piping before she says, “Nope.”

He snorts, and says, “Oh really, so what do these pipes do then?” 

Jillian looks up then, and says, “For most people they’ll probably carry clean and waste water into and out of their homes, for me they’ll theoretically re-direct nuclear powered proton energy with a minimal fatality rate.” Jillian pauses and does a quick mental calculation and adds, “Maybe a little light cancer, some tumors. You know how it is.”

The guy nods, eyes gone wide and says, “Yeah, sure, lady,” backing away to rejoin a group of other men in paint-splattered jeans and ball caps. 

Jillian smiles, thinking about how this one is acting so much like the guy that approached her in the ceiling fan aisle, and says, “These civilians are so weird.”

She tosses four of the curved PVC pipes into her cart and heads over toward the countertops, thinking about what material might be sturdy enough for an indoor target, when her phone vibrates in the pocket of her overalls. 

She pulls it out and glances at the screen before swiping and saying, “Hello, Abigail.”

“Hey, where are you? Patty’s found something strange showing up in pictures of an old mansion in the Bronx.”

“I’m at Home Depot picking up some supplies, I can get through the self checkout in about 10 minutes flat and pick you up,” Jillian says, doing a quick inventory of her cart. “How strange?”

“Creepy non-aging woman in pictures from the mansion over a 50-year period. Plus someone reported strange things happening there. Could be something good.”

Jillian hmms, and says, “Are we thinking a class 2 apparition? Might not be visible outside of pictures.”

“It’s possible. The witness wasn’t specific about what kind of weird things they saw.”

“Should be fun,” Jillian says, pushing the cart quickly up the aisle. “I’ll be back at the office to pick you up in 15 minutes or less.”

“Home depot is at least 30 minutes away from here.”

Jillian chuckles and says, “You’re right, make it 20 minutes. See you soon,” and hangs up. 

“Out of the way, people,” Jillian yells, pushing past a few people in line. “Ghostbusters business!”

*

**_Erin_**

Erin sinks back into her chair and tries not to moan. It’s been ages since she had a good scalp massage, and with the amount of dye she’s needed to keep the white from coming back, it’s overdue. 

She’d suggested the day off as a joke, but she’s never been so glad to be taken seriously. Erin didn’t even think she needed a day off, but between the calf massage she got with her pedicure, the facial, and now the scalp massage, she’s sure they need one every chance they can get.

With the breach closed and all of the amplifying devices destroyed, Erin had thought their work would be mostly research, but they’ve found that plenty of ghosts managed to stick around. So many that they’ve had some sort of call nearly every week since, and every week since Erin has gotten some level of ectoplasm into her hair, down her jumpsuit, in her shoes. And she’s learned that ectoplasm fades hair dye; it’s been terrible for her bath towels. 

The pressure on her scalp eases up, and Erin says, “Kasey, you can go a littler harder there,” trailing off as more pressure is applied to the base of her neck.

“If you want to move to the table, I can start on your back,” Kasey says, stopping the glorious pressure that’s almost made Erin forget about finding ectoplasm in a purse she absolutely did not take on their last job. 

Erin mumbles, “Sure,” letting herself be led over to lie down on the table with her face in the little cushioned hole. 

“Also I think your phone has been vibrating.”

Erin gets up and grabs the phone before lying back down and trying to read her missed calls through the hole in the table. It looks like several calls from Abby. “Probably procrastinating on that chapter,” Erin mumbles, tapping out a text one-handed, letting Abby know she’s in the middle of a massage and Abby is welcome to come procrastinate here. She hits send, lets her phone fall to the floor beneath her, and relaxes.

Erin isn’t sure how much time passes, but it can’t be more than a half an hour before the door flies open and she hears the sound of boots walking across the floor accompanied by an, “Erin, why aren’t your answering calls or texts?”

Kasey’s hands stop working their magic, so Erin looks up and sees Abby and Holtzmann all geared up and ready to go. “What’s going on?” Erin asks, confused. 

“I texted you,” Abby says. “Patty found something in the Bronx, we’re heading up to check it out.”

Erin squints and says, “And we all need to go?”

“This is a pretty sweet set up they’ve got here,” Holtzmann says, looking around at the massage tables and recliners.

“It’s at least a class 2 apparition. Showing up in pictures unchanged for fifty-plus years, and now the staff are reporting weird encounters,” Abby says. “Come on, you know you want in on this.”

Erin caves; she does. They haven’t had anything like this yet; something manifesting over time and leaving a record? It’s a great research opportunity. 

“Alright, just let me get dressed,” Erin says. Then she turns to Kasey and says, “I’m going to need a rain check on the rest of that massage.”

*  
**_Patty_**

Patty hangs out near the entrance of the mansion, not bothering to go in before the rest of the team is there. She’s got her phone out, still chasing down a lead on who the scowling, non-aging woman in the pictures might have been. 

There’s weird history around that international garden club: at least 5 members murdered over the course of 30 years, 3 with husbands who died under mysterious circumstances, and 1 who disappeared and was never found. It’s the disappearance that’s the most interesting. 

It was the first in a series of tragedies for the club. Mrs. Campbell Carter-Bell, one of the leading members of the club, disappeared when she was 50 after disapproving of the social-climbing new-money member of the club who’d caught her son’s eye. 

“Ohh,” Patty says, finding another fact about the Carter-Bells. “Looks like her son married that social climber six months after Mommy went missing.” There’s a footnote about the new Mrs. Carter-Bell quitting the club a few weeks after her wedding with rumors of harassment from the other members. Patty keeps searching and finds that the son inherited the family fortune within months of his mother’s death and moved his new and newly very rich family out of the area, never bothering to follow up with police about his mother’s disappearance. 

“No wonder she’s still pissed,” Patty mumbles, connecting the scowling image with the missing disapproving mom. 

Patty starts to look up more info on that family or a picture to confirm her hunch about their ghost when she hears tires squeal and looks up to see Holtzmann speeding into the driveway. Every time Patty sees her driving, even when she’s not in the car, her life flashes before her eyes, and this time she’s glad she was walking distance from the case. 

“Anything new?” Abby asks, handing Patty her jumpsuit and proton pack. “We’ve got full gear just in case.”

Patty nods and says, “Good plan. So get this, this rich lady goes missing in 1924. She’s a member of the garden club, old money, all of that. Her son then marries some new money wannabe as soon as mom goes missing and new wife quits the garden club because of --” Here Patty pauses to make air quotes. “-- harassment”. 

“We think this is our apparition?” Holtzmann asks, checking her cool proton side arms that she still hasn’t gotten around to making for anyone else.

“Oh yeah,” Patty says, strapping on her proton pack. “In the years since that disappearance and marriage mom didn’t want? Five members murdered by their husbands, three have husbands that went missing and --” Patty stops to check her phone again. “-- over the last 60 years, they’ve had 20 former members hospitalized for hallucinations.”

“So definitely not peaceful,” Erin says, looking up at the mansion. “Did they ever find this woman’s body?” 

“Nope,” Patty says. “I don’t know that they looked that hard after her son took the new wife along with his new money and got the hell out of town.”

“Wonderful. Are we sure she’s still around?” Erin asks. Abby starts to answer when the front doors of the mansion slam open and three people run out screaming. There’s the faint sound of someone shrieking _you whores stole my son._

“Never mind.”

“I think that’s the official end to this day off, let’s go,” Abby says, and they head in with proton packs charged, ready to bust another ghost.

 

THE END


End file.
